The National Geographic Magazine
wrote a friend after first seeing the President,
"totally different from what I had observed
in any other human being. The sockets of
the eyes, for instance, were larger than what
I ever met with before, and the upper part
of the nose broader. All his features were
indicative of the strongest passions: yet like
Socrates his judgment and self-command made
him appear a man of different cast in the eyes
of the world."
In some respects, the portrait of Washing
ton by Rembrandt Peale, a younger contem
porary of Gilbert Stuart, comes closer to this
verbal description than Stuart's own pictures.
Peale was once known as the last surviving
artist who had painted Washington from life:
but the likeness reproduced (page 299) was an
ideal conception in which he apparently tried
to combine the best features of his first por
trait, of several portraits painted by his father,
Charles Willson Peale, of some by John Trum
bull, and of the study for the statue by Jean
Antoine Houdon.
"Porthole Portrait" in President's Study
This picture from the National Gallery,
one of 79 replicas painted by the artist, now
hangs in the President's study at the White
House.
When John Marshall saw a replica of the
picture the Chief Justice exclaimed, "It seems
as if I were looking at the living man! It is
more like Washington than anything I have
ever seen."
Yet the contrast between Peale's composite
and somewhat idealized image of the first
President and the realistic, matter-of-fact in
terpretation by another contemporary, Ed
ward Savage (page 305), is striking. Here
Washington, painted from life, is shown at
Mount Vernon, leaning his right arm on his
adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis,
child of Mrs. Washington's son by her first
marriage.
On the table at which the President is seated
lies a map showing the location of the pro
posed Capital. Mrs. Washington sits oppo
site and points with her fan to the chart. By
her side is Eleanor Parke Custis, sister of
George, and behind stands their Negro serv
ant. Billy Lee.
The engraving after the painting was so
successful that Savage wrote Washington in
1798: "As soon as I got one of the prints
ready to be seen, I advertised in two of the
papers that a subscription would be opened
for about twenty days. Within that time
there was 331 subscribers to the print and
about 100 had subscribed previously, all of
them the most respectable people in the city
IPhiladelphia].
.
.
.
There is every proba
bility at present of its producing me at least
$10,000 in one twelve-month."
In view of the purchasing power of the
dollar in the 18th century, this would seem
to be the highest income ever realized by an
American artist from a single picture.
Mature John Randolph Seems a Boy
Meanwhile, Gilbert Stuart was busily paint
ing not only Washington but the other heroes
of the young Republic. Many of these por
traits are in the National Gallery's collection.
and it is hard to decide in some cases whether
their esthetic or historic interest is greater,
whether they belong in an art gallery or in a
portrait gallery.
Among the Gilbert Stuart paintings, one of
the most baffling and difficult to place is that
of John Randolph (page 303). As a work of
art the picture is superb: as an historic docu
ment, fascinating, for never did Stuart paint
with more verve or achieve a more urbane
characterization.
But whom was the artist actually painting?
Was it the sitter he saw before him, who was
then aged 32, or was it a schoolboy of 16?
Did Randolph's vanity impose itself on the
artist's vision, or did this extraordinary Vir
ginian possess the secret of eternal youth?
Henry Adams said that Stuart's portrait
"interprets the mystery of the affection and
faith he [Randolph inspired in his friends."
Since the picture hung for many years at
Roanoke, Randolph's country house, pre
sumably none of these friends found it star
tlingly unlike its subject. Could Randolph's
adolescent appearance be in part, then, due to
his Indian blood, to his descent from Poca
hontas? We know that. like an Indian, he
remained almost beardless.
Stuart Painted Subjects as He Saw Them
The accuracy of Stuart's portrait seems
likely, for on the whole he was disinclined to
flatter his sitters. Commodore Thomas Mac
donough (page 302), for example, looks like
a ruddy-complexioned, vigorous, but not par
ticularly handsome naval officer in his early
forties, and this would have been his age at
the time he sat for his portrait, shortly after
the close of the War of 1812. It was during
that war that Macdonough gained a decisive
victory on Lake Champlain over the British
under Commodore George Downie.
Nor can it be said that Stuart has made
Matilda Cruger (page 307) into an exceptional
beauty. Instead, how subtly has the artist
suggested in the roundness under her chin the
young woman who has to watch her figure,
296